Shock Trooper AI art by Night Cafe
Shock Trooper
One of the new epic reward cards is the Shock Trooper. At level 1, he is a pure damage dealer dishing out 4 magic damage at level 1. At only 4 mana, it's easy to find a slot for him in any battle.
Looking at his stats alone, he's already as good as legendary cards. However, he comes with a drawback--his disability, Electrified. At the beginning of round 2 and succeeding rounds, he will deal 1 damage to all(!) allied units. This is a terrible price to pay in my opinion and renders him unusable in most battles. There is one ruleset though where he can be useful.
Back to Basics
Back to basics ruleset is where units lose their abilities or in Shock Trooper's case, disability. You can freely use his stats but his Electrified is off. Here is a couple of battles where I took advantage of the ruleset and using the Shock Trooper. Incidentally, I also used the Halfling Refugee whose own disability, Weary is also turned off.
Battle 1 against Death Splinter
Battle 2 against a Neutral team
Conclusion
There are a lot of new cards that with their strengths and weaknesses. You may not find some cards useful at first but there are rulesets where they can shine. It's up to us players to devise strategies to maximize the potential of each card.
Thanks for reading and have fun playing Splinterlands!